You can’t keep a Universal monster down. Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, The Creature From The Black Lagoon…all these iconic creations are being exhumed for a new generation, so it seems rather fitting that this new shared universe begins with our action-man hero raiding an ancient tomb: it all starts with The Mummy.
“I think it’s different in its pace and its tone, and even though it’s similar and wanting to honour the classic it keeps true to the classic story,” explains star Annabelle Wallis (Peaky Blinders, King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword).
“It’s really good at taking an old classic and bringing it to modern day and making it a legend of our time. And Tom [Cruise] is like nobody else [in that he] knows his audience and knows what they desire. We have such an intellectual audience so he wanted to make a really well rounded film with great characters and add his fantastical Tom elements like Zero G and underwater stunts.
“It’s a real adventure film, it’s an homage to classics and also great pairings on screen like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, and having a modern film with old Hollywood elements to it and making people feel nostalgic and feel excited about the direction we’re going with cinema in the future.”
Cruise leads the cast as military man/smuggler Nick Morton. While we’re used to seeing himin roles like Ethan Hunt and Jack Reacher, this character doesn’t exactly start The Mummy in the most heroic of places, as his co-star Jake Johnson (New Girl, Drinking Buddies) explains.
“They just go around and try to steal antiquities to sell on the black market. They’re not worried about winning a war or fight anybody, they’re just crooks,” he tells us.
It’s always more interesting to watch Cruise play in moral grey areas (his other highest profile horror role was Interview With The Vampire’s Lestat, after all), and, more importantly, he’s the one responsible for everything that happens next, as Johnson succinctly puts it: “While looking for treasure they uncover the Mummy and they piss her off and that starts the journey of this movie.”
The Mummy is in cinemas from today. Get all the latest science fiction news with every issue of SciFiNow.